The present invention relates to a method of recording a color image with a plurality of laser beams.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 59 (1984)-62879 discloses a recording system for recording a color image on a recording medium by modulating a plurality of laser beams with color image signals representative of differently colored images, respectively, applying the modulated laser beams simultaneously to a plurality of photosensitive bodies, respectively, to form latent images thereon which correspond respectively to the color image signals, developing the latent images into respective visible images, and transferring and fixing the visible images to the recording medium.
The above publication discloses two recording apparatus. One of the disclosed recording apparatus employs as many laser beam scanners as the number of the photosensitive bodies used, as shown in FIG. 2 of the publication. This recording apparatus is however disadvantageous in that it is large in size, complex in structure, and costly to manufacture since a plurality of laser beam scanners are employed.
The other recording apparatus disclosed in the above publication includes a single rotating polygonal mirror for deflecting the laser beams. Due to optical design requirements, the rotating polygonal mirror is required to be elongate along an axis about which it is rotated. The cost of the recording apparatus is relatively high since the elongate polygonal mirror of high optical accuracy cannot be fabricated easily.